Milestones

I decided I'd sign up for the blog this month on my birthday, so I wouldn't forget! To blog, I mean, not that it's my birthday. I figured I'd remember that, if barely. If I'm really into whatever I am writing at the moment, I tend to have trouble going beyond remembering just writing, and picking up my kids, those two essentials. That must be why along with blogging time I also scheduled my car's 25,000 mile maintenance tomorrow. So I'd remember to take the car in. And of course, what could be better than taking your car in to the Toyota dealer on your birthday?

Two dear friends took me out to lunch on Saturday - to celebrate both my then upcoming birthday and my son's, just passed, at a really nice little French restaurant up on Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood (which served a great chocolate souffle.) I digress. (but then blogs are sort of for digression) . They kept having to remind me that it was my birthday, too, when I joined the waiters in singing Happy Birthday to my son, but over-rode my own name. Oops.

Apparently, along with remembering to blog and maintain my car properly I do need someone to tell me that it's my birthday.

My friends kept pointing out to me that this was a milestone birthday and not only should I stop forgetting it, I should do something special - but it doesn't really feel like a milestone birthday, you know, one of those birthdays that end in zero and don't begin with a one. I think I'd worry if it did feel like a milestone. Life is a work in progress. A constant rewrite. A calendar page you forget to read.

Besides, I am doing something special, along with taking my car in for an oil change, that is. I'm going to write. I'm going to read. I'm going to spend some time with my kids and my husband and get Thai take-out.

I like milestones just as much as the next person, but not in terms of birthdays. I'm not worried about getting older, I'm not even concerned, particularly, over whether or not the glycolic acid #15 that supposedly eliminates wrinkles is working on those pesky things around my eyes. Well, I'm concerned to the extent that I did spend too much money on the stuff, so I hope it's doing SOMETHING other than getting on my hands when I rub my eyes, and then on my pen, which I chew on sometimes when I write. Nasty. Maybe your wrinkles vanish when you ingest the stuff.

Anyway, I prefer milestones in terms of books I've written. Books I've sold!

There, books - now I can officially and somewhat neatly segue into the true Tuesday topic which is -

BOOKS.

I always have several going, my gym book, my car book (no, I don't read and drive, but I have been known to read while I pump gas, I have an SUV, and the cheapest gas station around, the local Arco, has verrry slow pumps) and my night table book (s). I have a fairly eclectic group of books right now - JAR CITY, an Icelandic mystery - I'm enjoying it tremendously, but how many American police detectives subsist on "junk food" like cold sheepshead? I'm also finishing both CHARMING JO and CHAMPAGNE RULES.

The authors of two of these books - Laura Drewry and Susan Lyons - are part of this blog. They do not appear to consume sheepshead, nor do their characters, but they're wonderful writers.

Anyway, veering back to milestones - I consider myself very lucky indeed to be a part of this blog, and a part of this group with so much talent. Now that's a milestone which doesn't require the application of gycolic acid #15.

Genie Davis
Five O'Clock Shadow - OUT NOW!